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CAUSE CélèBRE – TEACHINg RESOURCES Case 2: Illinois, USA Donald Weber Jr. was a popular young man with a promising future. He was athletic, clever, handsome and likeable. He came from a well off and popular family. In 1983 he met Lynda Singshinsuk and they soon became lovers. In autumn 1984 the pair was parted when Weber went off to law school in New York. They remained an item and frequently wrote and spoke to each other. The distance put a strain on the relationship though and Weber became paranoid about the new friends Lynda was mentioning in her letters. In 1990, when Weber lost his job and decided to move to Chicago, the pair split up when Lynda admitted she had been having a relationship with a friend, Thad. Weber told a psychiatrist he wasn’t sure if he love Lynda, but was obsessed with getting her back. On Monday 16 April 1990, Weber went, with a .22 calibre hand gun, some ammunition and a rope to Chicago. He arrived on Lynda’s door step at 10.30pm. Weber shot her six times in the chest, one bullet pierced her heart. He buried her in a rubbish dump. Lynda was listed as missing: with no body there was no crime. Weber was questioned but released when he couldn’t be placed at the scene. Five months later Weber read that hunters sometimes found the bodies of murder victims. He dug Lynda up and buried her again in a forest in Arizona. He fled to Thailand, apparently chosen because it has no extradition agreement with the USA. It seemed he had gotten away with it. However, on Christmas Day 1990 he telephoned Lynda’s parents and offered to tell them where her body was in exchange for $50,000. The Singshinsuks hired a private detective who tracked down Weber in Thailand and spent 22 hours grilling him. He confessed but showed no remorse and drew a map to Lynda’s grave. Weber later flew to Arizona to lead a private search party. In March 1991, when Lynda’s body had been identified, Weber was arrested and charged with murder, armed robbery and concealing a homicide. Weber told his lawyers that he wanted the death penalty. However, Illinois law states the death penalty can only be imposed when a jury returns a guilty verdict. Weber pleaded guilty to spare the Singshinsuk family the ordeal of a trial. Weber was sentenced to 75 years imprisonment. He will be eligible for parole in 2027. 14
CAUSE CélèBRE – TEACHINg RESOURCES A Parallel Case The OJ Simpson Trial The OJ Simpson murder trial, officially known as The People vs Simpson, was the most publicised case of the 20th century. Simpson was tried for two counts of murder following the death of both his ex wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in June 1994. After a trial of nine months, Simpson was acquitted. The parallels between this case and that of the Rattenbury trial lie in several areas. Firstly, the media coverage the case received was phenomenal and controversial; the issue of whether or not to allow any video cameras into the courtroom was among the first issues Judge Ito had to decide, eventually ruling that live camera coverage was warranted. Following the trial Ito was criticised for this decision by other legal professionals. Furthermore Ito himself and others related to the case were said to have been influenced to some degree by the media presence, and the publicity that came with it. Indeed, some would say it is difficult to see how they could not be influenced by such a high level of public and media interest; the trial was covered in 2,237 news segments from between 1994 and 1997. The public response to the verdict also mirrors the Rattenbury case and the public response to Stoner’s sentence. Critics of the not-guilty verdict contend that the deliberation time taken by the jury was unduly short and that jurors did not understand the scientific evidence. There is also contention about an OJ Simpson incriminating statement Simpson made to police about cutting his finger the night the murders took place. The jury was not permitted to hear the tape of this statement. It has also been said that the prosecutors should have gone into more detail about Simpson’s abuse of his wife, and that it should have been made clear to the mostly African-American jury that Simpson had little impact in the black community and had done nothing to help those less fortunate than him. Another, more obvious parallel lies in the relationship between the three. There are suggestions that Goldman’s relationship with Nicole was more than platonic. The two certainly spent an increasing amount of time together, meeting for coffee, going to clubs and restaurants together, “…he boasted of her stunning good looks and talked about the special kick it gave him to see heads turn when the two of them pulled up in her white Ferrari in front of The Gate, a fashionable West Hollywood dance club, with him behind the wheel.” 1 . Although the triangle in the Rattenbury case is different, the similarity is visible none the less. For Simpson the trial was a fall from grace in terms of public opinion and such was the case with Alma. Both cases involve incidents of infidelity, questions about the impact of the media on the fairness of the trial and as the two were high profile public figures both cases are typical of a cause célèbre. 1 Mosk, Matthew; Hall, Carla (1994-06-15). “Victim Thrived on Life in Fast Lane, His Friends Recall”. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2009-03-10. 15
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